UNDERSTANDING TO RESEARCH

A RUDIMENTARY UNDERSTANDING TO RESEARCH IN THE

SOCIAL SCIENCES
ISSN 2277-7733
Akshay Bhat
Volume 7 Issue
Goa Institute of Management, Poriem, Sattari, Goa.
4, March 2019
Abstract
This essay is primarily devoted to be a primer for aspiring researchers in the social sciences.
Maintaining brevity yet aspiring to keep a comprehensive outlook into some basic terminology has
been the purpose. We glean seminal papers into understanding how the conduct of inquiry instigates
revolutions, builds paradigms and also, understanding how the elements and processes contribute to
knowledge creation. Importance of Variables, Methods, Scale Development Practices and Models are
touched upon with its nuances and caveats.
Keywords: Paradigms, Qualitative Research, Quantitative Research, Scale Development,
Variables, Models
Research in the Social Sciences and especially in management has been carried out
since many years, However, in ‘Todays Paradigm’, research in the domain of
management can be traced back to the last century with the establishment of many
Business Schools in the United States which catered to the creation and dissemination
of knowledge related to Management Sciences. However, Business Schoolsfocused
seemingly and overtly in the scientific temperament of management(Bennis &
O’Toole, 2005), being influenced by the Automotive Industry 1 . A Management
Degree or the first MBA’s in those days catered more to Taylor’s school of thought
,see (Doray & Macey, 1988); Optimization was the ‘paradigm’ then.However, if we
probe deep into it we realize that paradigm development takes years or in some cases
centuries to develop.Currently in 2019 we talk abought the ‘Industry 4.0’ Paradigm.
Paradigm Development
A paradigm is essentially a consensus development by a set of followers and adherents
who subscribe to a certain school of thought or understanding, in which they have
their own ontological: or an assumption of reality/being and epistemological:
assumptions related to understanding the reality which they hold to be “true”
(Mackenzie & House, 1978). The phenomenon to be accounted for is called
explanandum and the statements and statements describing the phenomena are called
explanandum sentences and the explanatory information being provided hence, is
called explanans. However not every scholar or a person in pursuit of intellectual
excellence, is servile to the dominant paradigm of his time. There may be questions
raised as to whether the dominant paradigm can answer all of the questions raised at
that latter point of time. When more too often the answer is no, a given paradigm
succumbs which leads to the formation of a new paradigm which too would have its
own life cycle. For years in the western school of thought, scholars, explorers and
others thought that the world was flat. In a theologian backed up feudal society where
the church held a supreme place,decreed that it was indeed flat. When a set of rebel-
scientists thought otherwise and were not obsequious to the explanation provided by
the dominant paradigm of that time: they were admonished by being declared as
heretics and excommunicated from the society and the formal church systems.

1 Business schools were looked upon as finishing schools

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However, over time, after this spark of dissidence was ignited, there were other
followers to these intellectual rebels: and a new paradigm emerged, albeit embryonic,
in which their pursuit of truth or the explanandum was to describe the nature of the
earth and so on. This new paradigm, which branched out from the old also gave rise
to new ways of understanding: very soon it too had its development and followers,
and its share of dissidents as well. These revolutions as described happen in almost
every field, In his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions; Thomas Kuhn says
that these scientific revolutions are paradigms which incubate, develop and face
decline, and between any two consecutive developments there is a revolution and then
again a peaceful interlude and again this is a repetitive cycle(Kuhn, 1962). However,
we must note that paradigm development takes years to develop, and ossify. The
current paradigm (dominant order of that time), in order to suppress the new
paradigm can also reinvent itself by adding to it, new knowledge which forms the
foundation. Paradigm in itself supports creation of new knowledge, provided it is not
in conflict with certain core “shared” values of its adherents and its and the nature of
the quintessence of its foundations: Measuring Devices, Empirical Laws and a specific
set of super structures (Byrne, 1971).
Therefore, is the ‘philosophy of management’ a science – an established paradigm?
Where we get clearly outlined rules or is it an art, where the power of imagination can
open new avenues of thinking. Either extreme would by unimaginable. For if “Social
Sciences” are indeed a part of puritarian science than Man, as we know today would
be nothing more than a mechanical mass-body with a predestined fate. And if it is an
art, overtly, thenwe would come up figments of imagination often, whimsical leading
to inappropriate mythical explanations. Therefore, true researchers understand the
importance of both. Every paradigm has its set of ‘Theories’.
Theories & Theory Development
Not every statement is today pronounced by a person can be called a theory. We must
pause and reflect whether a theory truly is universal for which the understanding of
concept traveling (whether a concept can be accommodated to varying situations) and
concept stretching (the extent to which a theory can explain situations under its aegis)
become important. If a concept or a theory is too vast then we may question it on its
generality. Therefore, a theory must be a specific but not too insular. A theory must
be a bit action oriented in my understanding to explain the pragmatic nature of the
world or “real 2” world as we call today.Therefore the construction of ‘Theories’ is of
utmost importance, however much , the state is quite appalling in theoretical
construction today (Bennis & O’Toole, 2005; Platt, 1964; Sutton & Staw, 2012; Weick,
1989, 1995; Whetten, 1989).
So in short the problems at hand, especially in todays’ management context and in the
last few decades is that new theories are just not getting developed, rather that they
continue to bank on the theories developed by researchers in the 1970’s(Suddaby,
Roy; Hardy, Cynthia; Huy, 2011). So much so that when they called the scholarly
community for new theory what they received in return was a critique for the same,

2A real world would in my opinion be a paradigm of the understanding which has the maximum followers.
The world which is perceived by one will be different with varying levels of degree of variation from the
person next to you.
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the critiques in their part too failed to develop any new theory but rather suggested
and focused on the process of theory construction, the three things that the critique
had in common were and that Management or Social Science, has failed to develop its
‘own’ theories which fail to capture the rich complexity of organizations and is
inherently conservative to practice. Suddaby, Roy; Hardy, Cynthia; Huy (2011) then
immediately shift the focus to the problems we have at hand in theory generation.
They quote scholars who have lamented over the fact that Management Science is not
a fully developed independent stream and rather a stream that has borrowed from
other disciplines like sociology, engineering etc. but also the above authors quote
other scholars critical of management science as an evolved independent discipline
who concur within their retinue of followers that organizations today have become
grounds where management theorists subject existing theories to the vagaries of new
validation technique . This disconnect between management theory and practice needs
to be bridged.I shift focus to the elements that construe of the constituents of a
theory, starting with variables.
Variables
Quite more than often, we come across the term variable, but we need to pause and
reflect on the qualities and aspects of variables before we just conjure them to be
objects of measurement variables can be classified majorly intobroadly,Direct
Variables:Taking help of real world examples to ameliorate the distinction between the
two taxa under which variables are classified which otherwise tend to overlap if not
conceptualized correctly: Measures such as GDP, ROE etc.which are examples of
attributesthat can be garnered from secondary or primary sources which constitute
what we call as direct variables.A nature of such variables is that it can be observed
directly and can be readily looked upon through physical experimentation or
databases. The more complex, Latent Variables:Indirectly measured, which are hidden
and need to be culled out, brought out with meaning and accuracy from the object
under consideration.Construct with respect to Latent variables: A ‘theoreticalconstruct’ may
have a lot of latent variables, hidden, viz. example we have a questionnaire or a survey,
so an item may not be directly measuring something but indirectly measuring
something latent, the variable then may be a construct or it may be a sub construct.In
Latent Variables we further haveConstituted Constructs: put lucidly consists of the basic
blocks – giving rise to the construct; if one of the blocks do not exist the phenomena
will not happen.For example,for “water” molecule as we know today will necessarily
need two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom to “form” a water molecule.Reflective
Construct:Akin to the analogy of howwater gives can be seen as steam (gaseous), ice
(solid)and liquid forms which are reflective constructsof water, something that reflects
out characteristics of the element. But to measure these variables we need ‘methods’
and therefore the next section.
Methods – Differences in between the two dominant types (Qualitative and
Quantitative Approaches)
Moving on to the next part of the research process is deciding whether to go for a
Qualitative or a Quantitative Study and the following understanding is widely accepted
by most scholars (Golafshani, 2003).As enunciated above,: the two types of methods
include qualitative and quantitative research, one explains the link which is generally
established by the latter.In quantitative research the researcher first acclimatizes him
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or her to the problem to be studied or the concept which he is working on and then
generate hypotheses on the basis of facts, information in the form of numbers,
process of analyzing data and concluding results.
The quantitative researcher appreciates the phenomena which he is studying by
delimiting it to a set of standards he is accustomed to or familiar with; also, measuring
responses of the people, assigns a numerical value to each of their responses.This
place a lot of emphasis on the measuring tool or instrument, therefore validity of this
instrument is of prime importance to us. The test is supposed to validate if what we
are measuring is what was truly meant to be measured? Therefore,reliability and
Reliability: “The extent to which results are consistent over time and an accurate representation of
the total population under study is referred to as reliability and if the results of a study can be
reproduced under a similar methodology, then the research instrument is considered to be
reliable.”(Golafshani, 2003). This is dependent on repeated measurements with a
similar set of instruments under a given time period which shows stable results.Critics,
who state that because some people answer to certain types of questionnaire which
are same but measure at different points in time may have different results, primarily
owing to the fact that the responder might have sensitized oneself the questions, may
want to project some desirable image after getting to know the results of the first
questionnaire, profess socially desirable responses questioning the integrity of the tests
itself.
Validity: “Validity determines whether the research truly measures that which it was intended to
measure or how truthful the research results are. In other words, does the research instrument allow
you to hit "the bull’s eye" of your research object. Researchers generally determine validity by asking a
series of questions, and will often look for the answers in the research of others.”(Golafshani, 2003)
The validity in Quantitative Techniques is defined as “construct validity”, the
construct is the initial concept, notion, question or hypothesis that determines which
data is to be gathered and how it is to be gathered. But when we shift gear and come
to qualitative research will these definitions hold good? While a quantitative researcher
will be concerned with the degree to which the results will repeat and more over have
they actually observed or measured what they intended to measure, the qualitative
researcher on the other hand would be concerned over not repeatability but the
precision, credibility and transferability. Hoepfl (1997), Cf. (Golafshani, 2003)) said
“Unlike quantitative researchers who seek causal determination, prediction, and generalization of
findings, qualitative researchers seek instead illumination, understanding, and extrapolation to
similar situations”.
Reliability in Qualitative Research: The test of reliability in this case would be one
where in the research is tested for its quality and its ability to explain an otherwise
obfuscating situation. Stenbacka (2001) stated: - “This relates to the concept of a good quality
research when reliability is a concept to evaluate quality in quantitative study with a “purpose of
explaining” while quality concept in qualitative study has the purpose of “generating understanding”.
Stenbacka (2001) also questioned the need of reliability in Qualitative Research,
stating the fact that qualitative research did not need reliability and that that concept
was irrelevant if not misleading as well. Lincoln & Guba (1985) used the term
“dependability” as a surrogate to “reliability” when it came to quality research. Also
“dependability” could be further bolstered be an inquiry audit.

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Validity in Qualitative Research: The concept of Validity is not well defined by
scholars in Qualitative research paradigm, rather “rather a contingent construct,
inescapably grounded in the processes and intentions of particular research
methodologies and projects” is how qualitative research scholars address the issue of
finding the surrogate of “validity” in this paradigm. Also they have debated the need
for a refined definition. (Golafshani, 2003)takes the support of many eminent scholars
who have advocated triangulation approach in order to test their theory/research
finding, he also called out for an approach to standardization via this route.
Triangulation is as defined as: “Triangulation may include multiple methods of data collection
and data analysis, but does not suggest a fix method for all the researches. The methods chosen in
triangulation to test the validity and reliability of a study depend on the criterion of the research”.
Scale Development Practices
One of the important and critical nuances of Research is scale development is to make
the research community cognizant about the problems encountered in data collated
from questionnaires, since most research which is not to esoteric, but is practice
oriented (which is majorly research carried out in the field of management). The
question of reliability (reliability of results) and validity (whether it is actually
measuring what it is supposed to measure) hit the scene when it comes to data
collection based on questionnaires and has at times created problems for interpreting
the results of the research.
Schwab (1980)outlined three steps in development of measures.
Item Development – Development of Individual Items, which can be inductively
thought or deductively thought of; Scale Development – Items get combined into
scales; Item Evaluation – Psychometric Evaluation of the new measure
Some, important aspects the following are important for scale development.
Whether the sample chosen is actually representative of the population; Concern over
use of negatively worded (reverse scored) items; No of items to in a measure; How
much variance is there in between the respondents as generated by the scale for
sufficient scrutiny; Size of the sample taken
Model Development
The term model may denote anything used to explain a particular phenomenon.
However, in the Social Sciences, it has a more profound role. Models are said to
provide: Meaningful contexts, report specific findings, look into significant details and
must be “true” and also important. Through the aforesaidsections, it will be also true
in the case of theory. Theory too guides the collection of data, which gives some
direction in subsequent analysis bereft of some conceptual understanding; systematic
reporting of data based on heuristics is not meaningful. Important to note is that there
is a coevolution of Data and Theory. Any researcher studying either on a standalone
basis would not deliver a comprehensive answer of the phenomenological question
being studied or inquired into.
The distinction between Model and Theory happens when in the process of our
study, we come across the methodological part. Surely, like most research which seeks
to answer a question, it generates certain leads which we like to test, for this we
formulate hypothesis which is one of the aids to theory development. Hypothesis
development takes place in the twilight regions of our minds. The departure and the
point of inflection between theory and model happens right here: Models are more
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conscious, definite and more explicit. The importance and the purpose of Models are
to communicate to the larger community, of scientists what exactly the researcher has
in mind. Since science is not only cumulative, it is cumulative because it is cooperative
as well: this is just how we examined in the paradigm development as well, where for a
paradigm to emerge there is a set of followers who strut the development of the field.
Models may be either physical in nature or semantical (using symbols), formal
equations or interpretive (through qualitative work).
Conclusion
The purpose of this primer has been, primarily to introduce first time researchers to
the world of management research by a person who is very much learning, but has
been formally through an advanced research course, a Doctorate. In this process also
cautioning them to tread away from mere fact finding and conjuring reports which do
not in any sense contribute to the advancement of the field or serve to answer any
managerial problem, for which more depth and understanding is required. A sincere
attempt has also been to distinguish terms that have demarcations but often tend to
get misused unintentionally since many of them have overlapping themes.
Selected References
Bacharach, S. B. (1989). Organizational Theories: Some Criteria for Evaluation. The
Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 496.
Bennis, W. G., & O’Toole, J. (2005). How business schools lost their way. Harvard
business review, 83(5), 96–104, 154.
Doray, B., & Macey, D. (1988). From Taylorism to Fordism: A rational madness.
Golafshani, N. (2003). Understanding Reliability and Validity in Qualitative Research,
8(4), 597–606.
Hinkin, T. (1995). A review of scale development practices in the study of
organizations. Journal of Management, 21(5), 967–988.
Hubbard, D. (2011). How to Measure Anything. Retrieved from
http://ampres.com.mx/pdf/How to Measure Anything Finding the Value of
Intangibles in Business.PDF
Kuhn, T. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions .
Mackenzie, K., & House, R. (1978). Paradigm development in the social sciences: A
proposed research strategy. Academy of Management Review.
Platt, J. (1964). Strong inference. science, 146(3642).
Prahalad, C., & Hamel, G. (1994). Strategy as a field of study: Why search for a new
paradigm? Strategic management journal, 15(Special Issue), 5–16.
Schwab, D. P. (1980). Construct validity in organizational behavior. Research in
Organizational Behavior, 2, 3–43.
Suddaby, Roy; Hardy, Cynthia; Huy, Q. (2011). WHERE ARE THE NEW
THEORIES OF ORGANIZATION? Academy of Management Review, 36(2), 236–
246.
Sutton, R., & Staw, B. M. (2012). ASQ Forum What Theory is Not, 40(3), 371–384.
Weick, K. E. (1989). Theory Construction as Disciplined Imagination. The Academy of
Management Review, 14(4), 516.
Weick, K. E. (1995). What Theory is Not, Theorizing Is. Administrative Science Quarterly,
40(3), 385.

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Whetten, D. a. (1989). What Constitutes a Theoretical Contribution? The Academy of
Management Review, 14(4), 490.
Stenbacka, C. (2001). Qualitative research requires quality concepts of its
own. Management Decision, 39(7), 551.
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